CPAC on Marriage in the Shadow of Obergefell

The conservative movement wrestled with its image and its advocacy after the legalization of gay marriage.

The Conservative Political Action Conference once again took up the subject of same-sex marriage last week, with one big change to the political landscape: this time the discussion took place under the shadow of Obergefell v. Hodges. “Dearly Beloved: A Conversation on Religious Liberty and Marriage in America” presented differing perspectives on the issue of religious freedom and gay rights, and during the discussion, one panelist revealed the particular quandary he faced in light of the freedoms lost and freedoms gained with the decision.

Panelist Guy Benson, a political editor at Townhall.com and Fox News contributor, mentioned that in his new book, floating among the footnotes, lies his first public disclosure of life as a gay conservative. In an interviewon “The Kelly File,” Benson said he opened up about his sexual orientation in order to provide relative context to a chapter on the issue of gay rights, context which he “owed” readers. When Megyn Kelly asked how Benson reconciled gay rights and religious freedom, Benson argued that though he appreciates the fight led by many to allow him to speak openly about his sexual orientation, the left often “crosses a threshold into punishing and purging dissenters,” violating individual’s freedom to practice religion without attack.

Such tension extended into last week’s discussion. When asked about Obergefell, Benson admitted that he was torn between personal satisfaction and doubts of the court’s “sound legal reasoning.” “I find myself in an interesting position of agreeing with the decision or being personally gratified by the outcome, but having some concerns about how the court reached the position.” Instead of dwelling on this tension, however, Ilya Shapiro from the Cato Institute quickly affirmed Benson’s doubts regarding the case’s legality, stating “Kennedy did a disservice” to the nation. The two other panelists—Mollie Hemingway from The Federalist and Dr. Ryan T. Anderson from the Heritage Foundation—echoed Benson and Shapiro’s comments against the court’s ruling. Hemingway and Anderson share a disagreement with same-sex marriage, but their respectful openness about their beliefs mirrored that of Benson moments earlier.

Later on in the panel discussion, Benson spoke against individuals in favor of gay marriage who demand “mandatory celebration, or we are coming after you.” Instead, he emphasized the need for coexistence within American society. In terms of exercising religious freedoms, he argued that civil disagreements become impossible when advocates threaten to sue those with traditional values “out of business,” referencing a floristin Washington state and a photographer in New Mexico, both of whom were hammered with government fines and the media’s disgust after exercising their right to maintain their conscience. Again, Benson was met with considerable agreement among the panel as Hemingway argued against the court’s “favoritism” toward one group over another. Anderson reflected that “people in robes” should not impose their personal bias on an entire nation.

CPAC itself has not been immune from controversial decisions about which speech to allow and which to prohibit concerning the issue of gays and conservatism. Previous years were accompanied by controversy over the allowable status of now-defunct conservative gay rights group GOProud, as the socially conservative wing of the movement vehemently objected to the group’s admittance as a sponsor or exhibitor. This year’s discussion, which lasted around half an hour, hinted at a pivot for conservatives, even in the heart of the movement—a shift from promoting traditional family values to defending religious liberty.

Before addressing a question regarding Obergefell, Benson turned to the audience and briefly polled the room, asking for a show of hands to determine where attendees stood on the issue. While those opposed to same-sex marriage did make up the majority, the hands of the minority did not represent a significantly smaller percentage. Similarly, in reaction to Benson’s footnote reveal, Joshua Riddle, co-founder of the siteYoung Conservatives, commented “It’s almost like conservatives don’t hate gay people like the media and the left would love for you to believe.”

Ashley Bloemhof is an editorial assistant at The American Conservative.

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25 Responses to CPAC on Marriage in the Shadow of Obergefell

It’s the enforced demand to celebrate what you know to be sin, and to welcome its acceptance even into your church that activists external and internal agitate for, on pain of being doxxed as a hater, that mightily chafes.

We’ve lived and let live a long time in regards to others sins, but this is perhaps the first time, out of warfare, that it’s been demanded that churchgoers be forced to celebrate sin.

“Later on in the panel discussion, Benson spoke against individuals in favor of gay marriage who demand “mandatory celebration, or we are coming after you.” Instead, he emphasized the need for coexistence within American society
….
“Previous years were accompanied by controversy over the allowable status of now-defunct conservative gay rights group GOProud, as the socially conservative wing of the movement vehemently objected to the group’s admittance as a sponsor or exhibitor.”

It’s the enforced demand to celebrate what you know to be sin, and to welcome its acceptance even into your church that activists external and internal agitate for, on pain of being doxxed as a hater, that mightily chafes.

We’ve lived and let live a long time in regards to others sins, but this is perhaps the first time, out of warfare, that it’s been demanded that churchgoers be forced to celebrate sin.

Can you elaborate on how it’s the first time a churchgoer has been “forced to celebrate sin”? For example, I can think of the following sinful behaviours that are now being celebrated and accepted: having sex out of marriage, divorces (depending on your particular denomination), interracial marriage (regarded as sins by a few denominations), or not keeping the Sabbath holy.

The idea that forcing people to accept and indirectly facilitate what they think is sinful behaviour is a brand new development is unfortunately not supported by history. It may seem shocking to you, and I’d attribute that to the creation of the culture war and the tribalism that resulted.

Gay couples were free to live together as though married ever since Lawrence v. Texas. What Obergefell did was oblige states to confer the status and benefits of legally sanctioned marriage upon them, even though there is no public consensus established, either through representative legislation or public plebiscite, that there is sufficient public benefit to confer such rights upon same sex couples.

The right of religious dissidents not to participate in heretical ceremonies aside, conservatives still need to focus and enlighten the public upon the danger of allowing the Courts to go beyond protecting minorities from government oppression in its definition of rights, all the way to dictating to the people and their elected governors and legislators the qualifications for public benefits.

I think Fran is exactly right, insofar as ‘marriage’ represents a communal recognition and acceptance of sex acts to be performed by the married couple. That is, marriage as a celebratory publicization of a sexual relationship made in principle on behalf of the whole community is perforce a communal act, making same-sex marriage an enforced celebration of homosexuality that is in no way analogous to any of the phenomena mentioned by S.

“I think Fran is exactly right, insofar as ‘marriage’ represents a communal recognition and acceptance of sex acts to be performed by the married couple. That is, marriage as a celebratory publicization of a sexual relationship made in principle on behalf of the whole community is perforce a communal act, making same-sex marriage an enforced celebration of homosexuality that is in no way analogous to any of the phenomena mentioned by S.”

I don’t understand. Wouldn’t the remarriage of a couple of divorcees be a “a celebratory publicization of a sexual relationship” that many people consider sinful or immoral? Why is it different?

And the answer cannot be “well, some people might consider it sinful but many other not, so it’s ok” without acknowledging that several Christian denominations, and many Jewish congregations, do not believe SSM to be sinful or immoral.

I would say that there is substantive historical difference of opinion regarding divorce amongst the several religions, sects, and denominations due to ambiguity in the sources concerning the question. This is clearly not the case regarding (specifically male) homosexuality, which is prohibited or demeaned in some sense in every major religious tradition. The departure from this norm in the last few decades on the part of certain groups cannot be separated from the general trend of secularization, and so is properly part of the history of anti-Christianity.

“I would say that there is substantive historical difference of opinion regarding divorce amongst the several religions, sects, and denominations due to ambiguity in the sources concerning the question. This is clearly not the case regarding (specifically male) homosexuality,….”

Shorter SCB

“well, some people might consider it sinful but many others won’t, so it’s ok”

And, under your test, is female SSM acceptable, because the sources are mostly silent about it?

If you are referring to the American legal sphere, I am not particularly concerned about what is ‘acceptable’ or not, since I am not convinced that my opinions have any significant bearing on the enactment of positive policy in this regard. As far as I understand it, female homosexuality is usually condemned in religious sources, but less strongly than male homosexuality. If the relationship between religion and law in the U.S. were clarified with something like consensus it would be possible to apply this to positive law. As it is, I only intend here to document the progress of anti-Christianity with a view toward forestalling its worst excesses.

In July, I went to a “gay” wedding where a minister married the couple. It was a religious ceremony. Five or six years ago, I went to a “gay” wedding and a minister also married the couple. It was also a religious ceremony. The idea that only straight couples have “religious” ceremonies and gay couple can only have “non-religious” ceremonies seems to me to the biggest mis-framing of the debate. And if my church allows me to marry in a religious ceremony and you refuse to bake me a cake or do the flowers, then you are also refusing to serve me because you don’t believe in what my church believes… and legally, your religion does not nor should not be more protected than my religion. It is called “Freedom of Religion”. Lastly… if these businesses posted in their advertising, on their website, in a sign in their door that they don’t want “gay dollars”… then the majority of gay people will go else where. But these businesses don’t want to do that, do they. They want our dollars when they want them… and don’t want them when they don’t… and very lastly… since when has baking a cake or arranging flowers been “forced celebration”… these people seem to be mistaking doing their jobs for invitations. My sister did not “invite” the person who baked her wedding cake to her wedding. She paid them to bake a cake. Period.

Fran is right historically. I can remember in the fifties when a well-known divorced Catholic soprano would come to Mass with her current husband. It drew attention, shall we say, which would be totally foreign today. (It wasn’t her celebrity, it was her brazenness.) Today, it would only be her celebrity.

And I have seen priests on TV talking about preparing young couples for marriage and just taking for granted that the majority of them are already living together.

The CPAC crowd is realizing that opposing gay “marriage” is counterproductive to the causes they really care about – Israel and Wall Street. No doubt every year the pro-gay minority will grow – it will be the majority by 2020. After all, Israel has de facto gay marriage and wall street types detest the flyover state holdouts who oppose it.

Gay couples were free to live together as though married ever since Lawrence v. Texas. What Obergefell did was oblige states to confer the status and benefits of legally sanctioned marriage upon them, even though there is no public consensus established, either through representative legislation or public plebiscite, that there is sufficient public benefit to confer such rights upon same sex couples.

There is substantial precedent justifying the advancement of minority rights even when the majority disagrees. I could cite all the usual civil rights era cases that overturned racist laws (Loving v. Virginia, Brown v. Board of Education). I’d imagine you feel those cases were rightly decided, so how does your priniciple differentiate those cases from Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges?SCB says:

I would say that there is substantive historical difference of opinion regarding divorce amongst the several religions, sects, and denominations due to ambiguity in the sources concerning the question. This is clearly not the case regarding (specifically male) homosexuality, which is prohibited or demeaned in some sense in every major religious tradition. The departure from this norm in the last few decades on the part of certain groups cannot be separated from the general trend of secularization, and so is properly part of the history of anti-Christianity.

I think the most generous way that you could phrase this is that forcing churchgoers to celebrate/indirectly participate in an activity is acceptable when there was no previous general consensus that the activity was sinful. However if the activity in question was widely understood to be sinful than it is not appropriate to impose on their beliefs in this way.

So then there’s a few obvious questions:
How do you define “general consensus”? How do you measure it? How does your proposed process test against previous beliefs (racism, slavery, anti-suffragism) that we now understand to be incorrect?

What degree of separation from the activity in question is considered acceptable? Remember that nobody is actually being forced to be gay-married, nor are we religious officials being forced to officiate said weddings. We are talking exclusively about vendors and government employees. What makes a baker or florist different from someone serving food at a same-sex wedding reception, or different from the janitor cleaning the floors after the wedding?

“There is substantial precedent justifying the advancement of minority rights even when the majority disagrees. I could cite all the usual civil rights era cases that overturned racist laws (Loving v. Virginia, Brown v. Board of Education). I’d imagine you feel those cases were rightly decided, so how does your priniciple differentiate those cases from Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges?”

The analogue to Loving v. Virginia was Lawrence v. Texas. Loving struck down a criminal statute which made it a criminal offense for two people of different races to live together as married, whether or not they had a marriage license from another state. Lawrence struck down a criminal statute which made it a criminal offense for two people of the same sex to live together as married, whether or not they had a marriage license from another state. Once the criminal statute was struck down, Virginia was obliged to issue marriage licenses to interracial couples because no one could deny that interracial couples could marry in fact, bear and raise children. Obergefell had to resort to the fiction of redefining marriage, one of the powers retained by the states under the Tenth Amendment and not removed from them by the Fourteenth.

Brown v. Board was wrongly decided. Not only did it fail to provide a convincing rationale for overturning established precedent interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment, it opened the barn door for every decision since which has allowed the Court to create “rights” according to its own predelection from whole cloth. And in failing the country judicially, the Court also failed it politically. It was the business of the states and the Congress to break down the barriers of segregation as America and its communities adjusted to a new public understanding of racial equality. This process should have started with laws regulating employment, public accommodations, adult education, housing, and only then childhood education. People were always going to be most upset by any liberties, any social engineering, to which their children were subjected. It was no wonder it provoked “massive resistance”, and greater discretion by the Court could have saved the nation much violence and grief in the process of redefining civil rights.

…What Obergefell did was oblige states to confer the status and benefits of legally sanctioned marriage upon them, even though there is no public consensus established, either through representative legislation or public plebiscite, that there is sufficient public benefit to confer such rights upon same sex couples.

The right of religious dissidents not to participate in heretical ceremonies aside, conservatives still need to focus and enlighten the public upon the danger of allowing the Courts to go beyond protecting minorities from government oppression in its definition of rights, all the way to dictating to the people and their elected governors and legislators the qualifications for public benefits.”

If marriage is a “public benefit,” meaning a benefit to our communal life as a society, what public benefit of marriage is not also conferred by SSM?

What “public benefits” are same-sex couples qualifying for that outweigh the public benefit of their marriage? In this case, “public benefits” appears to profit only the couple itself. If public benefits are conferred upon married couples, in what way do same-sex couples benefit differently from opposite-sex couples?

By using terms that are almost identical, but do not mean the same thing, you suggest that married same-sex couples somehow cheat the public, while offering no benefit to our social life that might possibly balance out the taken benefits, UNLIKE opposite-sex married couples.

Honestly I can find nothing “conservative” or Constitutionalist about legislating against something just because someone, or even the majority, consider it sinful. I’ll await social conservatives’ efforts to outlaw gluttony, which impacts the US considerably more than homosexuality. An authentic conservative or Constitutionalist opposes attempts by either the right OR the left to criminalize conduct just because they find it offensive or sinful.

It would be more accurate to say that I am proposing a dissociation as opposed to a process. Like Ta-Nehisi Coates, I believe that the United States Constitution is inseparable from its recognition of the legitimacy of slavery, which makes that document entirely incompatible with our present situation. Furthermore, the adoption of the Constitution led directly to the Civil War, which severely harmed my home country, the South. This lends a certain acerbity to my sentiments regarding it. Thus it should be clear that I am not proposing any kind of process, and that I do not desire any kind of political association with you beyond what is necessary.

In general, then, I do not view the history of the United States as a good source of moral guidance. I thus reject the notion that because ‘we’ have ‘decided’ that slavery is wrong, ‘we’ should ‘test’ our proposals against that ‘decision.’

With all of that baggage out of the way, I would tend to support some kind of establishment of religion. Religions, like nations, are politically-binding myths. I shall believe that I have freedom of religion when I am guaranteed freedom of nationality alongside of it. But is anyone proposing that?

My arguments above were aimed solely at showing that same-sex marriage is not analogous to divorced marriage. In no way should they be construed to advocate any specific policy in the context of United States law. I was perhaps too categorical in my dismissal, for which I apologize. However, I do think that attention to the nuances of historical religions would be of benefit for answering that specific question. Again, homosexuality is prohibited in every major world religion. This is not true of divorce, nor is it true of inter-racial marriage. Homosexuality is condemned explicitly in the Bible, which I presume is still kept in most American churches and synagogues. There is a broad general consensus in this regard, to which the revisions of present-day Jews and Christians are a very minor exception.

” . . . mentioned that in his new book, floating among the footnotes, lies his first public disclosure of life as a gay conservative.”

That one can actually use the term of homosexual choice in the same sentence as conservative and not have people collective roll their eyes and and or guffaw, says a good deal about where CPAC is with respect to conservative thought.

One would advance minority rights if they are infringed. There s a difference in having a similar condition infringement and extending rights beyond that violation for the purposes of encouraging a feel goodness.

—————-

“There was no consensus concerning interracial marriage in 1967.”

Black human beings and white human beings produce children, they represent a model of what any community that wants to thrives models. They provide flourish —

People of the same same gender produce nothing nor do they represent a healthy standard one would want a community who seeks preservation and extension mirror. That is true even if that particular union produces no children. They serve as the best model for doing so.

Attempting to equate behavior and color is the bait and with of the slave owner, supporter and beneficiary used to this day to mollify all things white and justify whatever nonsensical intellectual impractical selfish whim.

There is no biological mandate for the choice to engage in homosexual behavior.

In general, then, I do not view the history of the United States as a good source of moral guidance. I thus reject the notion that because ‘we’ have ‘decided’ that slavery is wrong, ‘we’ should ‘test’ our proposals against that ‘decision.’

Perhaps it would help if I reframed the message as follows:

I like to think that what we’re all doing here is discussing these things in the hopes that we can find a way to develop a viable way of handling diversity of thought and morality within North American culture. I’m not here to convince other people that homosexuality is morally acceptable; I respect that traditional Christianity has found it to be a sin, and I believe we’re all entitled to our freedom of conscience.

What I do want to know is where should we draw the line between freedom of conscience, and preventing other people from being discriminated against. I’d love to see a guiding philosophy that optimizes freedom of conscience while prohibiting unacceptable levels of discrimination. I do not feel the best way to do that is find one issue and write a guiding principle around that because it implicitly permits people to do the same for their pet causes and therefore undermines the objective of finding a mutually acceptable social compact. Instead, I think it’s best to discern the general guidelines one uses that can then be integrated into a guiding principle. You can then test that principle against previous errors (and successes) to ensure it’s reasonably viewpoint neutral.

Or phrased another way: Traditionalist Christians are now arguing that they should be left alone in peace. I’ve said before that traditional Christianity wouldn’t have the image problems it has if it left gay people alone, and I want to hear an argument that I can get behind as a gay man that respects my rights to live my life the way I choose without imposing unfair burdens on people who don’t agree with me.

For example: I’m not convinced that we need to badger every baker and florist into serving a same-sex marriage. I do not believe that religious educational institutions should be forced to accept it. I think they should be allowed to hold their opinions as they do, insofar as those opinions do not challenge the education being delivered (I would not want to ever see a scientologist psychologist, as an example)

With all of that baggage out of the way, I would tend to support some kind of establishment of religion. Religions, like nations, are politically-binding myths. I shall believe that I have freedom of religion when I am guaranteed freedom of nationality alongside of it. But is anyone proposing that?

Is that the topic of discussion here? This seems a bit of a non-sequitur, perhaps you could elaborate?

My arguments above were aimed solely at showing that same-sex marriage is not analogous to divorced marriage. In no way should they be construed to advocate any specific policy in the context of United States law. I was perhaps too categorical in my dismissal, for which I apologize. However, I do think that attention to the nuances of historical religions would be of benefit for answering that specific question. Again, homosexuality is prohibited in every major world religion. This is not true of divorce, nor is it true of inter-racial marriage. Homosexuality is condemned explicitly in the Bible, which I presume is still kept in most American churches and synagogues. There is a broad general consensus in this regard, to which the revisions of present-day Jews and Christians are a very minor exception.

First, I have to say that I love that we’re having this discussion. 🙂 Second, I’d have to differ and say that I think SSM is somewhat analogous to divorced marriage in the sense that they both impose a burden of celebration and participation on non-believing others, though I can’t disagree that homosexual behaviour (to the extent that people were aware of it) was likely widely condemned in Western culture for most of history. Third, I’d also challenge the assertion that every major world religion prohibits it; the Eastern religions are largely silent on the topic from a scriptual perspective.

I am a straight, 65 year old white man and I could care less about gay marriage. What I do care about is that my 401K stinks and I will have to work far longer than I had hoped. Most straight men that I know could care less about gay marriage. Why are these “social conservatives” so obsessed with this subject? I think that they may protest a bit too much. You almost have to wonder if some of them are closet queens.

And if my church allows me to marry in a religious ceremony and you refuse to bake me a cake or do the flowers, then you are also refusing to serve me because you don’t believe in what my church believes… and legally, your religion does not nor should not be more protected than my religion.

Nonsense. YOU are free to practice YOUR religion; the baker, the photographer, and the candle stick maker are free to practice THEIR OWN religion. None of you are required to practice the religion of any of the rest of you.

Its really not the religion that has rights. It is the individual, who’s free exercise of their own faith is protected, and all of you individuals are protected against establishment of someone else’s religion as mandatory for you. Individuals can exercise their rights by associating with other individuals of common faith for corporate worship.

So, just because their church will not bless a same-sex marriage, does not impeded your church doing so. And, just because your church will bless a same sex marriage, does not obligate them to participate in your celebration. Is your same sex marriage a sin? I don’t know. Some churches think so, and are free to teach it. Yours does not, and is free to celebrate what others call a sin. A Baptist church is free to have a pork barbecue, but a kosher meat market doesn’t have to sell the pork to them.

There is an old story about a priest and a rabbi having lunch together. The priest asked the rabbi, come on now, when are you going to at least try a little ham. After mulling this over the rabbi replied, “At your wedding.”

There is substantial precedent justifying the advancement of minority rights even when the majority disagrees. I could cite all the usual civil rights era cases that overturned racist laws (Loving v. Virginia, Brown v. Board of Education). I’d imagine you feel those cases were rightly decided, so how does your priniciple differentiate those cases from Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges?

Rich, google Loving v. Virginia within the TAC site, and you will get a whole host of columns from Rod Dreher’s blog in which I have distinguished all these cases in great detail. Its a no-brainer, unless you are both wearing ideological blinders and indulging the Fallacy of Analogy. Analogy may be helpful to illustrate a point, but it is never proof.

In a nutshell, race is irrelevant to the essence of marriage, but sex is of the essence, whether one included same-sex relations or not. And, Lawrence, which I fully support, was decided on right to privacy grounds, whereas Obergefell, which I do not, was decided by twisting “equal protection of the laws” into almost unrecognizable shape. There is no valid equal protection argument. Again, google within the TAC sight and you will find plenty of reasoning put forth as to why — you don’t have to agree, but don’t delude yourself that the question is an original thought that nobody has dared to answer as yet.

We are talking exclusively about vendors and government employees. What makes a baker or florist different from someone serving food at a same-sex wedding reception, or different from the janitor cleaning the floors after the wedding?

“Degree of separation” is not the issue. The issue is compelled speech. Government may not compel speech, and in a narrow range of situations, even a person in business commercially may be subjected to compelled speech by the operation of “civil rights” statutes. This operation of an otherwise valid law, the Bill of Rights properly restrains.

Elane Photography made very clear that whether a customer was gay would be no criterion at all to providing service. They would not, however, participate in a ceremony that celebrated something they consider sinful. How about compelling a Jewish butcher to come butcher a pig because “after all, nobody is asking you to take a share home and eat it”?

since when has baking a cake or arranging flowers been “forced celebration”

If one of the grooms comes in and buys a cake off the shelf, or orders a generic cake without specifications, its not. But, if the groom wants the baker to ice on the cake “Adam and Steve, together forever in wedded bliss,” with two men dolls on top, the baker may well refuse, and would be within his or her rights to do so. This is not unlike the owner of a silk screen shop refusing to make a shirt for Ted Cruz, because they are heart and soul for Bernie Sanders. (Many businesses are glad to take the cash of any candidate, regardless of the printer’s own convictions, but they don’t have to.) Arranging the flowers is more subtle, but again, if the arrangements are bought generically, and transported and placed by a member of the wedding party, it is true, the florist is not participating in the celebration. Nobody, however, could deny that the photographer is being paid to glorify, celebrate, to make the most of “the happiest day of our lives.”

I don’t understand. Wouldn’t the remarriage of a couple of divorcees be a “a celebratory publicization of a sexual relationship” that many people consider sinful or immoral? Why is it different?

If a Mennonite photographer said “I’m sorry, I can’t work on photographing and celebrating the bigamous ‘wedding’ of two divorced people who each have spouses now living,” it would not be different at all. And why would you want someone whose heart is not in their work putting together an album recording your most cherished memories of the happiest day of your lives (or maybe the second happiest)?

For example, I can think of the following sinful behaviours that are now being celebrated and accepted: having sex out of marriage, divorces (depending on your particular denomination), interracial marriage (regarded as sins by a few denominations), or not keeping the Sabbath holy.

Aside from inter-racial marriage, in what manner are any of the above being “celebrated”? Tolerated yes, accepted, but not celebrated. As to inter-racial marriage, of course a photographer who objected would not be compelled to take the pictures. I doubt any inter-racial couple would want them touching the wedding album with a ten foot pole. I can’t think of any category except gay couples who would even consider that it is more fun to make the homophobic bigot take the wedding pictures than it is to have someone who appreciates the joy and solemnity of the occasion to do the honors.

Siarlys–I think the question is: how far do we allow this license of disapproval to refuse service? Does the janitor at the wedding hall get to refuse to clean up after the reception? Does the taxi-cab driver get to refuse to drive the happy couple (not just now, but any time in the future)? Does a mortgage banker get to refuse to arrange a mortgage for the couple? How far is too far?

At the moment, we have this fine line when basically says “no compelled speech” but “otherwise, ya gotta provide” which seems to be a happy medium in my mind. But the social conservatives aren’t happy with this and want to shove the line over even farther. Which brings all the questions out that I outlined above.

(The optics would also work out much better if the supposed “traditional marriage” supporters put their money where their mouths were and were similarly fussy about selling to divorced people, people who lived together before marriage, and all the other people who transgressed rules of their church. Otherwise it just looks like picking on a group that “traditional marriage” supporters have decided to use as scapegoats.)

The objection to ‘gay marriage’ by Catholic and Orthodox Christians a matter of natural law, not a matter of their particular doctrines.

Catholic and Orthodox Christians do not have a ‘faith-based belief’ that homosexual intercourse is against the natural law, and thus that ‘gay marriage’ is impossible in light of nature’s laws is the matter. They have a rational, philosophical understanding of human nature based on sociology, history, and experience.

According to this philosophy, civil positive law must derive from natural law. This is why the legal definition of ‘marriage’ is important to Catholic and Orthodox Christians, and many others.

Catholics and Orthodox are not merely defending their little niches of worship and culture. They are defending the rational foundations of law in Western civilization. They believe that the adoption of ‘gay marriage’ is a dramatic rejection of the understanding of positive law as derived from human nature, not merely the will of the majority.